


In Too Deep

by slipgoingunder



Series: Doing the Unstuck [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Banter, Bathtub, Comfort, Deleted Scene, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Hair Washing, Hand Jobs, My usual, Reylo - Freeform, banter as foreplay, bathtub handjob, just more of it, more flirting and banter, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 23:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipgoingunder/pseuds/slipgoingunder
Summary: Here's a gratuitous hair washing scene that I cut out of Chapter 15 ofDoing the Unstuckon the advice of someone much smarter than me.Rey and Ben are good friends who have just slept together and gone through a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows. Rey encouraged Ben to take a "relaxing" bath:--“You mean you don’t regularly sit in the tub for several hours and read trashy young adult romances while listening to guilty pleasure music? Because, personally, I wouldn’t know anything about that, but it sounds very relaxing. You should try it.”“I keep all my young adult romances on my iPad.” He shuts the washer lid.“Yeah, that’s a recipe for disaster in a tub. Maybe just a copy of The Economist, then. A little light reading.” She leans against the wall next to the laundry. “I’m serious. It’s the most soothing thing known to woman. We could transform the bathroom into a sanctuary.”“Rey—”“Hey, I tried your method of stress management. You have to try mine.” She takes a step back toward the bathroom door. “I’m filling the tub.”





	In Too Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/gifts).



> Hi! So I wrote in this scene because of an off-hand comment made by **selunchen** as she was helping me figure out some plot stuff for a previous chapter. "Hair washing" stuck in my head. She also drew a nice boom box into her [beautiful piece for this fic](https://twitter.com/selunchen/status/1074311345120702464). It seemed like fate because I had previously cut out a scene involving a boombox from an earlier chapter and kind of wanted to slide it back in. 
> 
> So, this whole bit (which I haven't changed) was pretty much lifted out of Chapter 15 at about the halfway point. There's a still a bathtub, so it's easy to tell where it goes. At first, I resisted cutting it, but it was probably the right call in a very long chapter. You'll notice some of the dialogue repeats. 
> 
> I have no idea if this works as a standalone, but godspeed if you read it this way!

After hate-watching an episode of _Riverdale_ and eating half of the leftover brunch muffin in bed, Rey puts on his Smashing Pumpkins shirt and the smallest, stretchiest pair of his underwear she could find in his closet, and knocks at the bathroom door with her elbow because her hands are full. 

“Can I come in? I have critical supplies.”

She can’t see anything from this angle anyway, except that the tub can’t quite comfortably contain him. _Definitely not both of us._

Shaking that thought out of her brain, she sets a giant black boombox on the green tile floor, a safe distance from the water, and walks over to the tub, holding out a selection of magazines. 

“This is the trashiest stuff I could come up with. Do you actually read your _New Yorker_ s?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Same. Of course. Every week.” There’s a rustic wooden stool next to the tub that looks like something out of a bathroom remodel photoshoot. Maybe it’s a refugee from his old apartment. Perhaps Paige would arrange an eclectic assortment of bottles and various bath accoutrements. _A sea sponge? Pumice stone?_ Right now, there’s just a stack of towels. She slides the stool over to the side of the tub, setting the magazines on top, within reach. “I’ll just leave them here in case you get bored.” 

She turns around, sneaking a very quick glance. Very quick. The water’s not clear though.

“Did you use a bath bomb or something?”

“I found some stuff in a set that I assume Paige got as a gift. I have no idea how I ended up with it.”

“You got custody of the fancy toiletries? You’re living your best life.”

He squints at her.

“Are you wearing my underwear?”

“What makes you think I didn’t have a spare pair of men’s briefs in my bag?”

“I wish that didn’t seem plausible.” 

“If it offends you, I’ll buy you a new pair.” It clearly does _not_ offend him. “Mood music?”

“You know that only plays tapes.”

Rey kneels down in front of the boombox, blowing a bit of dust off the top. 

“Luckily, there’s already a cassette inside.”

With a satisfying mechanical click, the tape starts to turn and a 1980s-style guitar riff blares through the speakers over a steady drumbeat. She fumbles for the volume dial. 

“Ben, I think we lucked into some power ballads.” 

“Sounds like Whitesnake.” He closes his eyes. “Must be one of Han’s mixtapes.” 

“Oh. Should I turn it off?”

He shakes his head.

“His taste in music will probably disappoint you. Unless you share his appreciation for REO Speedwagon. He used to make tapes instead of actually apologizing.” 

“Wow.” Rey could give Han so much shit for this nugget of information...if they were speaking. The track begins to fade out and she presses the pause button. “I challenge you to guess the next song.” 

He opens his eyes and turns to look at her.

“Out of any song in existence before nineteen eighty-eight?”

“ ‘She’s Like the Wind?’ ”

“Fleetwood Mac.”

She hits play. The shimmery keyboard intro of “Everywhere” peals out of the tinny boombox, cutting through the steam like a knife. They stare at each other. 

“Holy shit! Are you a wizard? How did you know that?”

“Leia went to at least three Fleetwood Mac reunion shows last year and the tape is for her." He pauses. "Still…”

“I choose to believe you’re a wizard.”

“Or that. What did I win?”

She walks back over to the stool and removes the magazines and all but one towel, sliding it back a bit and sitting behind Ben’s head. From this angle, he can’t see where she’s looking. 

“What, the pleasure of my company isn’t enough? Don’t you feel relaxed?”

“Yes, this very soothing, with you looming behind me and monster ballads in the background.” He chuckles. A little bit. Maybe. She could be imagining it. “Is this the point in the long con where you murder me for the money I don’t have anymore?”

“Don’t give me any ideas. The bathtub is a pretty good location for a crime with a lot of blood.” 

“Very relaxing conversation.”

Gazing at the back of Ben’s head, an old memory passes into her conscious brain. One of the last things she thinks she remembers about her mother. Assuming it’s real. Although this many years later, maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s fantasy or reality. 

“I actually know something I can do for you that’s pretty much the best feeling in the world. Above the neck,” she adds. “Don’t get too excited.”

She scoots the stool closer and reaches for the crown of his head, spreading her fingers and letting them slowly run down through his wet hair, down the back of his scalp and neck. He tilts his head back and seems to vibrate at the touch. _Is it possible to feel someone else’s meridian response?_

Then she does the same with her other hand. Alternating. Switching up the amount of pressure. 

“When I was growing up,” she starts, haltingly, “the bathroom was the only room where I had privacy. The door locked. It felt like the safest place sometimes.” 

He stills. She knows she’s worrying him, but it’s easier to talk when they’re not looking at each other. 

“I didn’t usually have enough time to take a bath or anything,” she continues. Reaching for the expensive-as-fuck shampoo, she squeezes a generous amount into her palm. “Someone would start banging on the door before I could fill the tub. But a few times I got away with it as a teenager. It felt good. Luxurious or something.” 

Gently, she works the shampoo into a lather in his hair. The scent is something ambiguous and slightly...herbaceous? Rey can’t say she prefers it to Pantene. 

“I’d sit in the tub with a paperback. I ruined the bottoms of my books that way. Lots of romance novels from the discard bin at the library. Lots of ‘iron rod covered in velvet’ and ‘turgid shafts.’ Good times.” She tugs lightly on his roots with both hands. “I loved being alone and warm… I could actually breathe. And no one could hurt me.” Ben turns his head, but not all the way. Her throat feels thick and she loses her desire to keep sharing. “Could’ve just been the steam, though. And I mean, thank god for the faucet.” 

“The faucet?”

“It gave me my first orgasm.”

“Oh.”

She slides her fingers up and down the back of his neck in a way that she imagines would feel good to her. He tilts his head forward and a ghostly little sensation running across nape of her own neck. 

“I guess the faucet is a rite of passage. I didn’t really know how to...do anything else for awhile. Using my own hand seemed...too purposeful, or something. With the faucet, I could just rationalize it as an ‘accident.’ Not that the way I had to contort myself could have been accidental.” Ben remains quiet, but she can feel that he’s really fucking tense. “I can’t imagine how much time I would have spent in the bathtub if I had unlimited access to it.” 

She swallows, the potential for another shameful emotional outburst having safely passed. His eyes follow her hand as she reaches across him to run the warm water through the handheld sprayer. _Which also would have been a nice implement to have, back in the day_. 

She clears her throat. 

“God, Han must’ve really fucked up, huh?” Rey observes over the heavy synthesizers of The Human League. “There’s literally a spoken word apology in the bridge on this one.”

“Subtle as a brick through a window.” 

Rey lets the water run over her hand, testing the temperature, waiting for the right balance from the tempramental plumbing.

“When did you first...experiment?”

* * *

“I don’t remember the first time.” It’s an honest answer. “I know I was too rough with myself for way too long.” 

“Sounds like you.” He turns his head again, but not enough to see her face. “No offense. Tilt your head back.” 

Her fingers in his hair are simultaneously the most pleasurable and excruciating things in the world. Covering his forehead with her left hand, she carefully rinses out the shampoo, running the nozzle over his scalp the way they do at salons. The gentle way she’s touching him makes his skin prickle. 

“Leia believed in being completely open about sex. She latched on to that concept of teaching kids the ‘real’ names for body parts. ‘Scrotum’ was just as normal as ‘elbow.’ That really helped, socially. On the playground.”

“I assumed all Manhattan children were that sophisticated.”

“Han gave me some _Playboy_ s after my bar mitzvah and sent me on me on my way. I didn’t get laid until I was twenty-one, ironically. Or fittingly.”

She puts the sprayer back and Ben is relieved that she grabs the conditioner without him asking her to keep going. _Her fingertips on his nerve endings are fucking heaven._ He feels himself getting hard under the semi-transparent water. Maybe she can see. Maybe she can’t. 

His underwear. She’s wearing his underwear. She touched everything in his drawers. Just helped herself.

“You were pretty uptight the first time we met.” 

“Yeah.” His head moves back as she combs the conditioner through with her fingers. “I would have been. Things were kind of...turbulent, at that point.” She doesn’t need to know how big of an understatement that is. 

“You didn’t seem very comfortable talking about sex.”

He could ask her not to stop, but he just really wants her to understand that she shouldn’t. She could keep pulling gently, and grazing her nails across his scalp and sliding her fingers up and down his neck for an hour and he’d still want more. 

“You made me nervous. It didn’t help that I was half-hard for the better part of that entire drive.”

Her hands stop for a moment. _Fuck, why does it always go a step too far?_

“Well it’s not like I was deliberately poking at your insecurities or anything,” she says, before moving her fingers again ( _thank God_ ), brushing the tops of his ears.

“Yeah, you’ve really changed so much over the years.”

“I almost felt sorry for you. Being that repressed. It wasn’t until your virtuoso performance with the Notes app that I realized I was dealing with a ringer.” 

All the old _what if_ s come rushing to the forefront of his mind. Maybe if they had just slept with each other four years ago… Would they be married now or LinkedIn connections?

“It was the right thing to do at the time, but I regret deleting that from my phone.”

“It’s okay.” She pauses her movements again _._ “I pretty much have it memorized.”

He whips his head around so fast, droplets fly at her. 

“You do?”

She nods, wiping the water off her face. 

“Yeah, I think about it...kind of a lot.”

He exhales loudly. It’s only come up a handful of times, but she’s been _thinking about it_. 

Her hand reaches in the water in front of him, and for a second it seems like she’s going to touch him under the surface of the water. He holds his breath, but she only dips her fingers and splashes his face in retribution before reaching for the nozzle again. 

“Please tell me there’s not a third step in your hair care routine.” There is, but he doesn’t say anything as she rinses out the conditioner. “Because it’s not happening.”

He stays quiet. _This is fucking torture_. He desperately wants to lift up her— _his_ —shirt and see her tits again. Maybe come on them. 

_Fuck. That escalated fast._

Rey stands up, returning the sprayer to its cradle. That’s it. As much as he misses the feeling of her hands in his hair, his mind has moved on. 

“Well... _now_ do you feel relaxed? At all?” _Relaxed_ is definitely not the right word for what he is right now. “I think the whole experience really suffered from a lack of young adult fiction,” she continues, perching on the edge of the tub, in front of him, balancing carefully on the rim. “And faucet-enabled masturbation.”

Their eyes meet for a long moment.

Her hand suddenly plunges beneath the surface of the water. A half second later he feels her hand wrap around his cock. 

He grips the sides of the tub, involuntarily, as her hand moves. 

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck yes fuck._

“Is this okay?”

_Fuck fuck fuck yes take whatever you want, anything, yes yes yes, angel, fuck fuck fuck._

“Yeah.”

“Can I keep going?”

“You can— _fuck_ …yes. _Yes_.” The combination of the warm water and the firmness of her grip and the way she’s looking at him and—

“I want you to come for me. Get out of the tub.” 

“You could get in.” He reaches for her— _his_ —shirt.

“God, you’ve clearly never attempted tub sex.” Rey grabs reaches for one of the folded towels. “What I have in mind won’t work in the water. My breath control isn’t _that_ good.”

It’s more than enough reason to get up. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you feel like you've been left hanging, smut-wise, [the chapter does continue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15877074/chapters/40513118). 
> 
> "In Too Deep" by Genesis was another sad 80s song that was supposed to play on the boombox later in the chapter and I had to go for the water pun. Sorry.


End file.
